Tuesday, September 30, 2008

This is a work of fiction written by comedian Andy Borowitz. And, like all great works of fiction, it rings very true. It also raises the question: is Sarah Palin the stupidest Republican VP candidate since Dan Quayle? That's up for debate. And it is a debate I would like to see, not Palin versus Biden, but Palin versus Quayle.

Centuries before the invention of cellphones and text messaging, Japanese poets came up with haiku, a poetic form perfectly suited for these modern forms of communication. Now Jakucho Setouchi, a Japanese novelist turned Buddhist nun came out with a cellphone novel. This novel joins others of its kind which are delivered via text messages and are popular with young Japanese women.

The Japanese have always been early adapters of new technology partly due to the fact that Japan is a major developer of new technology. It would be interesting to see if these cellphone novels would become popular in other parts of the world, like Europe for example, which are massive text message users.

This is a video that sheds a little light on the truth behind the McCain ads. It seems that the Republican Party knows only one way to campaign for an elected office in this country: dirty. They would rather make their oponents look bad and have the people vote with their hearts instead of presenting their case and having the people vote with their minds. I am getting just a little bit tired of these ads so I thought I would share this video with my readers.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Sarah Palin was an inspired choice for John McCain's running mate. She is a hockey mom who became a mayor of a small Alaskan town and went on to govern the entire state. This might make you believe that she was chosen for something other than her gender. This might make you believe that you too can rise from obscurity to the second highest office in this country.

We neither need, nor can not afford leaders who will pray for a solution in a critical situation instead of thinking of one. In case the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street didn't serve as a wake up call or a hint, this country is in deep trouble. Besides a two front war we are waging, the economy is slowly taking a trip back to the 1930s. I am not an economist and can not predict if we're heading for another not-so-great depression, but it sure feels like the ship of state soon will not be able to afford the fuel it runs on and run aground.

In this situation we don't need to be told to vote for somebody simply because they are a woman. We need to be told the truth. The truth is that she is wrong for the McCain presidential campaign, for the Republican party, and, most of all, she is wrong for America.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Paul Newman has died. He was 83 and had cancer. I loved his collaborations with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid as well as The Sting. He was menacing as Judge Roy Bean and as unbreakable as he was rebellious in Cool Hand Luke. Even though some people perceived him as a movie star, he was, first and foremost, an actor and he was great at his craft.

If you really want to know what other people in this country think about the upcoming election, Twitter has set up a page with you in mind: Election 2008. It moves pretty fast, but you can pause it by holding your mouse over a tweet.

China has reached the next milestone in their exploration of space. Even though it has been almost fifty years since Russia and the US achieved this, it is still an impressive achievement considering that China is only the third country in the world to put a man in orbit. I wonder if they are going to go to the moon next?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

According to CNN, the $700 billion that is needed to bail out Wall Street amounts to $2,000 per each taxpayer. That is not a lot of money if you think about it. What's $2,000? It's a used car, or a cruise, or a Swiss watch.

However, this is not the money I am willing to spend helping out the people whose incompetence and/or greed got them in this situation in the first place. If each taxpayer gives Wall Street $2,000 there is no guarantee that they will not blow the save and find themselves in this exact situation again.

So the best solution in this case is to turn the ownership of these troubled financial institutions over to the taxpayers themselves after the bail out. If the government, who officially will be bailing out Wall Street, does not like this idea, they need to take these banks over. This is the only way anybody will see a return on their investment.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Email Our Military, or eMOM, a Miami based organization that supports American troops via email and other forms of morale boosting correspondence has partnered up with Tatango. Tatango is a Seattle based company which connects groups via text messaging. Read the eMOM blog for more details on this partnership.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Today is the Talk Like a Pirate Day. So here is the picture of the two guys who came up with this holiday back in 1995. Now go out there and and talk like a pirate before I make ye walk the plank, ye bloody land lovers. Arrr!

Monday, September 15, 2008

George Takei married Brad Altman, his partner of 21 years, in Los Angeles on Sunday. Forty years ago, when Takei was playing Sulu on the original Star Trek, this was an impossible dream even in the idealistic future depicted on that show. This was an impossibility even a few years ago, but it seems that, at least in a small way, the future Gene Roddenberry envisioned is becoming a reality. And this wedding, to paraphrase a famous quote, is a small step for two men, a giant leap for mankind.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Recently I wrote about how it is important for bloggers to check their sources prior to posting. And then I almost did not follow that rule myself. This is what happened.

I was checking Twitter before leaving to go pick up my wife from work and saw this post:

BreakingNewsOn : Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin tells ABC News that war may be necessary if Russia invades another country.

Reading that made me nervous because the idea of a potential Vice President who supports a war with, or rather against, Russia scares me more than the idea of war with Russia. So I, upon arriving at my wife's work, proceeded to tell her about this gem of a news story. As somebody who is familiar with Russian history and its military I was convinced we're all doomed if Sarah Palin gets to be the second banana.

After we got home I sought out the article which would back up the quote I read. My search lead me to a number of videos I did not want to watch and then to a story that answered all my questions. The quote, it turned out, had to do with Georgia joining NATO and the US defending George in case of another attack by Russia. Palin was talking about defending one's ally which is a completely rational reason to go to war against a nation such as Russia.

I am really glad that I did not get on my little soapbox, waved my banner in the air, and proudly thumped my chest declaring for one and all to hear that the Republicans made a huge mistake with Plain as a running mate and that she, if elected, will upgrade this smoldering world wide conflict into global war.

So, like the title says, read before you leap. You'll be glad you did.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Today, on the Rick Sanchez 3 o'clock CNN show a topics of Russell Brand and his comments during the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards were discussed. It seems that Brand called George W. Bush a retarded cowboy. I would love to agree with Brand, but calling Bush retarded is unfair to people with mental retardation because I am sure they have more higher brain function than Bush.

To discuss MTV in general, and this incident in particular, Sanchez called upon Rachel Campos-Duffy, a former Real World cast member. Campos-Duffy, a conservative blogger and mother of five, proceeded to say that MTV has gone down hill in the years since she appeared on it. It's nice to hear Campos-Duffy have such nice things to say about her former employer. Especially since she owes her career to the appearance on Real World: San Fransisco and several subsequent MTV shows.

But what bothers me the most about this situation is that CNN, a serious news agency, considers the comments of a comedian on an irrelevant awards show worth reporting on. This is sad, very, very sad.

Monday, September 08, 2008

I have been getting my breaking news from CNN via Twitter by following cnnbrk. This is a very useful, not to mention quick, way to keep up with the world as a whole. The way this works is simple. Every time something newsworthy happens, cnnbrk posts it on Twitter and I get a text message on my phone so I don't have to use the phone's browser at all.

I like receiving these updates because when you live in a small town like Bloomsburg, it's very easy to forget about the greater world that lies beyond the county line. Also I don't usually watch CNN or other news channels, but I like to at least try to stay informed. And this allows me to stay informed to a degree.

Now I am following Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor who incorporated Twitter into his show recently. And even though I have not watched his show yet, I am not surprised by this move because using Twitter makes it faster and easier to communicate with the audience then the more traditional email.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Friday, September 05, 2008

Watching a child grow is an amazing thing. By now, this is not a new idea, in fact, it has been around as long as humanity itself, but I am sure that every person who has a child comes to this realization at some point.

After my daughter turned 20 months old in August, I started to wonder where the time has gone. I quite vividly remember her birth and her first birthday celebration, she opened all her presents herself. But now I find myself wondering where the time went and, more importantly, what to get her for her second birthday which will be here in four short months.

As my daughter grows, she develops new and astounding, at least to me, skills. Yesterday, for example, she climbed into her high chair by herself. This is like climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen in terms of toddler accomplishments. As I watched her perform this incredible feat, I was both extremely scared and extremely proud because it was something she attempted all by herself and succeeded.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

In his latest post Wil Wheaton refers to a post by Charlie Stross to explain why he won't be using Chrome. The big problem both Wil and Charlie have with Chrome is the copyright section of the user agreement. Charlie even links to a story in The Register which quotes the following from the user agreement:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

This looks like no matter what you do, Google owns you. However, the same story that Charlie links to has been updated as of this morning to show the new version of the copyright section of the agreement:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

The problem, it seems, has been solved. It also appears that bloggers, like other journalists, need to check their facts before getting up on their soapboxes and proclaiming their authority.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

So, like pretty much everybody else out there, I downloaded Google's new web browser Chrome. And now a day later I can say that I like it. I can't say much more than this because I have not had as much time to play with it as I would have liked but it seems to be a good browser.

At first I could not get used to the tabs being on top of the browser. This is a purely stylistic thing since I was used to Firefox and its tab location. Chrome gives you something that other browsers do not have - you can drag a single tab away from the others making it a separate window. You can also rearrange the tabs by putting them where you want them. This allows you to have a number of sites next to each other to simplify tasks such as comparing prices.

There are other features which I have yet to discover. But restoring the previously opened tabs upon start up is one feature I happily enabled. I used it rather heavily in Firefox and shutting down my PC without it would have proved somewhat difficult.

Monday, September 01, 2008

About Me

I was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the US in 1989. Since my arrival in this country I became a citizen, got my Bachelors degree, got married, became a father, and got my Masters degree. Occasionally, I am still perplexed by life in this country. And so I started this blog to explore all the things that perplex me. Also I like photography so I take a lot of pictures with my cell phone.

Subscribe To

All content is the property of Stan Yann, unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved. No part of this blog can be reproduced, copied or disseminated without the express written permission from the author.